Follow Opalflame

Coffee #27 – Tend Your Lawn

Life and Lawns

Life stretches out like a property -a lawn- caged by time. The lawn ornaments are chosen with care, maintenance outlined on a regular schedule.

People come for barbecues, luncheons, dinner parties, afternoon drinks, siestas, playtime, playdates, morning coffee, and stargazing. Garbage gets tossed on the lawn, cans in the hedges, tissue among the flowers and plastic bags in the trees. The grass grows tall, the litter piles up, and weeds take over.

You’re responsible for your lawn. You are responsible for your life. Clean it, or don’t.

People are invited, or they butt in. Some like to hope fences and make themselves at home. There are nosy neighbors peeking over the hedges. Sometimes, you get someone who thinks your lawn is for sale. That, for the right price, they own the property.

Watching

In stories, shows, and media, there tends to be a trend for people exacting revenge and sticking around see their handiwork. And subsequently, getting caught.

I wonder why this trend exists. Is it ego, or pride? Why do people want to watch? To rub it in? Why does it matter? Why the obsession with seeing how it all ends? With such high predictability, is confirmation really necessary?

No…

In the end, it isn’t about the need for confirmation. Most likely, it is a need to be right. To be exalted by the result -vindicated or gloated.

Just another face for self-exaltation.

Give me the script, I would write about the victim who didn’t need to watch. Leaving only the certainty that the end would come, the victim would sit back and wait. Years later, a messenger pigeon would fly by, the information would be delivered. The end.

No epic showdowns, no overrated battles, no final dragging speeches.

Unnecessary.

Revenge is best brewed cold and indifferent.

Mazhor ~Silver Spoons (2014)

Netflix, my new time waster, stumbled onto this gem of a show from Russia. If you haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil it, but I found it to be an excellent adaptation on the police dramas -cops and detectives- but in a stereotype of Russia. Reminiscent of Dexter, House, and Touched by Evil, Mazhor delivers a standard scene and background story but with a depth of twist. Or twisted depth, lol.

And I thought only the Swedes had that snazzy x factor… Something about the chilly side of Europe, I imagine.

Anyway, until the second season is translated -unfortunately, I do not speak or understand Russian- I am on the horns of suspense after the end of season 1. But the threads of the story cumulated in an unpredictable way.

An excellent dish of revenge- and an example of folks who like to stick around and rub it in when judgment rolled around.

I suspect, to their detriment.

So, no, Karma, I don’t want to be lucky and stick around when shit hits the fan. The water flows from the dark to the light, the tides of life sweep in and out from the shore.

People who hurt you do not need to ever be valued -even as an enemy. Ignore them all. Indifference, not hate, is the best revenge.